15.10. Starting a Kickstart Installation

Important — Kickstart installations and firstboot

Firstboot does not run after a system is installed from a Kickstart file unless a desktop and the X Window System were included in the installation and graphical login was enabled. Either specify a user with the user option in the Kickstart file before installing additional systems from it (refer to Section 15.4, “Kickstart Options” for details) or log into the installed system with a virtual console as root and add users with the adduser command.

To begin a kickstart installation, you must boot the system from boot media you have made or the Fedora DVD, and enter a special boot command at the boot prompt. The installation program looks for a kickstart file if the ks command line argument is passed to the kernel.

DVD and local storage

The linux ks= command also works if the ks.cfg file is located on a vfat or ext2 file system on local storage and you boot from the Fedora DVD.

With Driver Disk

If you need to use a driver disk with kickstart, specify the dd option as well. For example, if installation requires a kickstart file on a local hard drive and also requires a driver disk, boot the system with:

linux ks=hd:partition:/path/ks.cfg dd

Boot CD-ROM

If the kickstart file is on a boot CD-ROM as described in Section 15.8.1, “Creating Kickstart Boot Media”, insert the CD-ROM into the system, boot the system, and enter the following command at the boot: prompt (where ks.cfg is the name of the kickstart file):

Comma separated list of nameservers to use for a network installation.

driverdisk

Same as 'dd'.

expert

Turns on special features:

allows partitioning of removable media

prompts for a driver disk

gateway=<gw>

Gateway to use for a network installation.

graphical

Force graphical install. Required to have ftp/http use GUI.

isa

Prompt user for ISA devices configuration.

ip=<ip>

IP to use for a network installation, use 'dhcp' for DHCP.

ipv6=auto, ipv6=dhcp

IPv6 configuration for the device. Use auto to specify automatic neighbor discovery or dhcp for a stateful configuration with DHCPv6. You cannot specify a static IPv6 address.

keymap=<keymap>

Keyboard layout to use. Valid layouts include:

be-latin1 — Belgian

bg_bds-utf8 — Bulgarian

bg_pho-utf8 — Bulgarian (Phonetic)

br-abnt2 — Brazilian (ABNT2)

cf — French Canadian

croat — Croatian

cz-us-qwertz — Czech

cz-lat2 — Czech (qwerty)

de — German

de-latin1 — German (latin1)

de-latin1-nodeadkeys — German (latin1 without dead keys)

dvorak — Dvorak

dk — Danish

dk-latin1 — Danish (latin1)

es — Spanish

et — Estonian

fi — Finnish

fi-latin1 — Finnish (latin1)

fr — French

fr-latin9 — French (latin9)

fr-latin1 — French (latin1)

fr-pc — French (pc)

fr_CH — Swiss French

fr_CH-latin1 — Swiss French (latin1)

gr — Greek

hu — Hungarian

hu101 — Hungarian (101 key)

is-latin1 — Icelandic

it — Italian

it-ibm — Italian (IBM)

it2 — Italian (it2)

jp106 — Japanese

ko — Korean

la-latin1 — Latin American

mk-utf — Macedonian

nl — Dutch

no — Norwegian

pl2 — Polish

pt-latin1 — Portuguese

ro — Romanian

ru — Russian

sr-cy — Serbian

sr-latin — Serbian (latin)

sv-latin1 — Swedish

sg — Swiss German

sg-latin1 — Swiss German (latin1)

sk-qwerty — Slovak (qwerty)

slovene — Slovenian

trq — Turkish

uk — United Kingdom

ua-utf — Ukrainian

us-acentos — U.S. International

us — U.S. English

The file /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/system_config_keyboard/keyboard_models.py on 32-bit systems or /usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/system_config_keyboard/keyboard_models.py on 64-bit systems also contains this list and is part of the system-config-keyboard package.

ks=nfs:<server>:/<path>

The installation program looks for the kickstart file on the NFS server <server>, as file <path>. The installation program uses DHCP to configure the Ethernet card. For example, if your NFS server is server.example.com and the kickstart file is in the NFS share /mydir/ks.cfg, the correct boot command would be ks=nfs:server.example.com:/mydir/ks.cfg.

ks=http://<server>/<path>

The installation program looks for the kickstart file on the HTTP server <server>, as file <path>. The installation program uses DHCP to configure the Ethernet card. For example, if your HTTP server is server.example.com and the kickstart file is in the HTTP directory /mydir/ks.cfg, the correct boot command would be ks=http://server.example.com/mydir/ks.cfg.

ks=hd:<device>:/<file>

The installation program mounts the file system on <device> (which must be vfat or ext2), and looks for the kickstart configuration file as <file> in that file system (for example, ks=hd:sda3:/mydir/ks.cfg).

ks=bd:<biosdev>:/<path>

The installation program mounts the file system on the specified partition on the specified BIOS device <biosdev>, and looks for the kickstart configuration file specified in <path> (for example, ks=bd:80p3:/mydir/ks.cfg). Note this does not work for BIOS RAID sets.

ks=file:/<file>

The installation program tries to read the file <file> from the file system; no mounts are done. This is normally used if the kickstart file is already on the initrd image.

ks=cdrom:/<path>

The installation program looks for the kickstart file on CD-ROM, as file <path>.

ks

If ks is used alone, the installation program configures the Ethernet card to use DHCP. The kickstart file is read from NFS server specified by DHCP option server-name. The name of the kickstart file is one of the following:

If DHCP is specified and the boot file begins with a /, the boot file provided by DHCP is looked for on the NFS server.

If DHCP is specified and the boot file begins with something other than a /, the boot file provided by DHCP is looked for in the /kickstart directory on the NFS server.

If DHCP did not specify a boot file, then the installation program tries to read the file /kickstart/1.2.3.4-kickstart, where 1.2.3.4 is the numeric IP address of the machine being installed.

ksdevice=<device>

The installation program uses this network device to connect to the network. You can specify the device in one of five ways:

the device name of the interface, for example, eth0

the MAC address of the interface, for example, 00:12:34:56:78:9a

the keyword link, which specifies the first interface with its link in the up state

the keyword bootif, which uses the MAC address that pxelinux set in the BOOTIF variable. Set IPAPPEND 2 in your pxelinux.cfg file to have pxelinux set the BOOTIF variable.

the keyword ibft, which uses the MAC address of the interface specified by iBFT

For example, consider a system connected to an NFS server through the eth1 device. To perform a kickstart installation on this system using a kickstart file from the NFS server, you would use the command ks=nfs:<server>:/<path> ksdevice=eth1 at the boot: prompt.

kssendmac

Adds HTTP headers to ks=http:// request that can be helpful for provisioning systems. Includes MAC address of all nics in CGI environment variables of the form: "X-RHN-Provisioning-MAC-0: eth0 01:23:45:67:89:ab".

lang=<lang>

Language to use for the installation. This should be a language which is valid to be used with the 'lang' kickstart command.

loglevel=<level>

Set the minimum level required for messages to be logged. Values for <level> are debug, info, warning, error, and critical. The default value is info.

Do not pass information about the keyboard and mouse from anaconda stage 1 (the loader) to stage 2 (the installer).

nopcmcia

Ignore PCMCIA controller in system.

noprobe

Do not automatically probe for hardware; prompt the user to allow anaconda to probe for particular categories of hardware.

noshell

Do not put a shell on tty2 during install.

repo=cdrom

Do a DVD based installation.

repo=ftp://<path>

Use <path> for an FTP installation.

repo=hd:<dev>:<path>

Use <path> on <dev> for a hard drive installation.

repo=http://<path>

Use <path> for an HTTP installation.

repo=nfs:<path>

Use <path> for an NFS installation.

rescue

Run rescue environment.

resolution=<mode>

Run installer in mode specified, '1024x768' for example.

serial

Turns on serial console support.

skipddc

Do not probe the Data Display Channel (DDC) of the monitor. This option provides a workaround if the DDC probe causes the system to stop responding.

syslog=<host>[:<port>]

Once installation is up and running, send log messages to the syslog process on <host>, and optionally, on port <port>. Requires the remote syslog process to accept connections (the -r option).

text

Force text mode install.

Important

If you select text mode for a kickstart installation, make sure that you specify choices for the partitioning, bootloader, and package selection options. These steps are automated in text mode, and anaconda cannot prompt you for missing information. If you do not provide choices for these options, anaconda will stop the installation process.

updates

Prompt for storage device containing updates (bug fixes).

updates=ftp://<path>

Image containing updates over FTP.

updates=http://<path>

Image containing updates over HTTP.

upgradeany

Offer to upgrade any Linux installation detected on the system, regardless of the contents or the existence of the /etc/redhat-release file.

vnc

Enable vnc-based installation. You will need to connect to the machine using a vnc client application.

vncconnect=<host>[:<port>]

Connect to the vnc client named <host>, and optionally use port <port>.

Requires 'vnc' option to be specified as well.

vncpassword=<password>

Enable a password for the vnc connection. This will prevent someone from inadvertently connecting to the vnc-based installation.